Siriraj Hospital is the first hospital in the country that successfully conducted abdominal multi-organ transplant covering a stomach, liver, pancreas and intestine in seven hours.
Dr Prasit Watanapa, dean of the Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, and Dr Visit Wamwanich, director of Siriraj Hospital, said the hospital admitted a patient who had undergone an operation to remove a tumor from her intestine. Later the patient suffered an abdominal blood clot which blocked blood supply to many organs in the abdomen.
Dr Yongyut Sirivatanauksorn, deputy director of the hospital, said the patient then received a stomach, liver, pancreas and intestine from brain-dead organ donors. The transplant had to be accelerated because an intestine could lack blood supply for only 4-6 hours.
After the transplant, it took a year for the patient to recover until she could eat and excrete by herself. However, she will depend on immunosuppressants for the rest of her life.
The transplant cost 1.8 million baht and was supported by the transplant fund of the hospital as well as social security, government and universal health security welfare. (TNA)